


Some Nights Emperors Don't Help

by dubstepgun



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Humor, M/M, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-26
Updated: 2012-05-26
Packaged: 2017-11-06 01:19:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dubstepgun/pseuds/dubstepgun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a kink meme prompt. Shaun and Desmond share a bed, Desmond has a dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Nights Emperors Don't Help

**Author's Note:**

> I was going through old fic and I had the extremely late and profoundly embarrassing realization that the whole title thing here wasn't actually my idea, but something my brain had picked up from a line in the all-around excellent Slight Miscalculation by devera: http://archiveofourown.org/works/160708. So you really should go read that, because it's sweet, funny, and wonderful.

Shaun wasn't entirely finished breaking the news that there were only two beds between them when Rebecca said, "I call dibs on Lucy!"

After a moment: "What? She smells better than you guys."

Arguing wasn't worth the effort. Rebecca never budged on these issues. They'd once spent half a trip arguing about the laws of calling shotgun. Shaun stood by the rule that it isn't valid unless the vehicle is in sight, because _that was the rule._

Shaun, for the record, smelt fine.

There was no chance to debate the finer points. The girls turned and left, Rebecca with an insufferable grin and Lucy with a shrug. Desmond didn't argue at all. He only stripped to his boxers, crawled into bed, and muttered "night," as though you could get actually tired from crawling up imaginary walls in imaginary Italy and not at all appreciating anyone's thoughtful and fascinating notes on the imaginary architecture.

In fact, Desmond never complained about anything. He took kidnapping and ancient global conspiracies in stride and fell fast asleep as easily a cat in a sunbeam, while Shaun, who'd been dealing with the same sort of thing for years now and was getting quite good at it he thought, was left staring at the wall. Staring at the dark in front of the wall. With his glasses off it would be blurry anyway.

It had taken Shaun weeks to accept the idea that there really was a shadowy conspiracy running the world and an equally shadowy secret society trying to fight them. It was too much like all the old lunacy about Illuminati and hidden symbols and international bankers that always boiled down, in the light of day, to a few nutters with too much time on their hands blaming things on Jews. Shaun still had moments when the whole ridiculous notion fell apart and he was convinced that all the hiding was a farce, and they were children running from closets full of imaginary monsters. That usually lasted until news came in that another team had gone dark.

Getting over the lingering disbelief was the easy part. After that he had to face that there was a normal world, one where people had normal lives and whole weeks that went by without conversations about satellites that would tell the bad men where to come murder them. That all the apocalypse cults that pop up now and then around powerful personalities or dates with nice round numbers were only wrong in the details. That there were people without anything significant to be afraid of, and he would never be one of them again. Shaun could never quite stop resenting the world for that.

Shaun tried turning over. That got the peacefully sleeping Desmond breathing in his face, which just rubbed it in. Back to the wall.

Desmond didn't resent anyone, not even the people who'd practically re-kidnapped him. Just took it all in stride. Predecessor going mad, men who had been dead for hundreds of years taking over space in his brain, fate of the world on his shoulders, nothing to get upset about. Not even seeming to notice the moments of joking around about something stupid when there was a flash of the normal human being he could have been, and instead it was Shaun feeling like he'd swallowed bleach. It was actively infuriating. For a while Shaun had thought he was really and honestly so dim that he could be completely oblivious to what was happening to him, and really he still wasn't sure that was wrong-

He ground his face into the pillow. No, that would be the easy thing to believe. Better an idiot than someone whose life was so utterly bugfucked that he didn't expect any better. Or that it didn't even occur to him he should have had a choice.

He could at least have the decency to be put out by the whole mess. If he would bring up how his supposed friends were doing exactly the same thing to him that the Templars had been, maybe Shaun could stop thinking it.

All that and he was hogging the covers. The rest of the bed too, for good measure. Somehow through a very subtle siege, Shaun had gotten wedged between wall and snoring wanker. All right, let's be fair, not snoring, just breathing and from time to time making little murmuring noises. On the back of Shaun's neck. Shaun tried turning over and giving him a firm but gentle shove. Then he tried just a firm shove. Desmond didn't do much of anything except rock a little and be firm right back.

The really unbearable thing, the crap icing on the outrageous madness cake, was that the experimental subject they were all tossing the weight of the world onto had to not only be a person, but a ridiculously fit one. And with a distinctive nose. Why did Shaun have to have a thing for distinctive noses? But he was very discreet about it. Absolutely professional. If he happened to sneak glances at Desmond's arse while he was climbing on things, well, blame circumstances and tight jeans for that.

Oh, god, a shove gave the sleeping idiot ideas. He rolled over in exactly the wrong direction. And now, yes, that entire half-naked body pressed up against Shaun's back? That was spooning. Absolute, indefensible cuddling in the first degree. It was warmer, at least, but that didn't make up for how Shaun could practically count Desmond's chest hairs, and that he knew for a tactile fact that those were very nice pectorals. Desmond's hand slipped around and rested on Shaun's stomach.

That was enough. The fact that Shaun was even considering permitting himself to enjoy this was too pathetic for words. Shaun was going to wake him up if it took a slap to the face or a brick.

" _Caro mio,_ " Desmond sighed in his ear.

Oh. That was not good.

That was not Desmond's voice. That is, it was, but in the warm caramel of Ezio's accent. He'd tried a bit of the remembered Italian when he was in his right mind and quickly given up with the declaration that he could feel his own ancestor being horrified from beyond the grave. That only made it more disturbing when sometimes a few flawless, thoughtless words would slip out. It only took a gentle reminder to return him to the real world.

That was when he was awake. When he didn't have both arms firmly knotted around anyone's middle.

It was supposed to be dangerous to wake a sleepwalker. Did that also go for people suffering from side effects of magical history machines? If Desmond was persistently convinced he was Ezio, it could be dangerous in the same way suddenly waking any highly skilled assassin would be. What if Shaun tried to wriggle away? No, no, that only got - oh god - more intense cuddling. Did he just wait it out? Maybe if he held very, very still and looked nonthreatening, Desmond would lose interest and wander off. Wait, no, that was for bears.

" _Qual è il problema_?"

Oh, of course, Shaun being stiff and slightly terrified, _that_ he noticed while sleeping like a mad oversexed Renaissance log. And now he was murmuring comforting things in Shaun's ear that included _bello_ and _amore_ and all in all completely failed to be comforting, especially because what was poking him in the back was absolutely not a hidden blade.

Shaun was just going to roll his eyes up and think very hard about the ceiling. Yes, good old reliable ceiling. Sitting up there keeping the sky out. Commendable job.

He should have known this would happen, with all the little interludes they were always skipping in the Animus. Who knew what was going on in this intervals when he wasn't supposed to be busy with assassinations and saving the world. Why couldn't Ezio have been one of those chaste married-to-his-work types? How did Desmond manage to stay asleep while grinding his crotch on Shaun's arse? If the situation were less bizarre he would be insulted.

He'd try doing multiplication tables in his head. Running through the lineage of Roman emperors. Anything besides leaning back and pretending that Desmond's voice was talking to him and not some woman who'd been dead for hundreds of years.

Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius...

Desmond quieted down. That was a good sign. Maybe he was moving onto dreaming about being naked at an examination like normal people.

Nero, then Galba, Otho, and Vitellius in quick succession, 69 was a bad year to be an Emperor...

Shaun would just go to sleep with Desmond latched there like a marsupial. They'd laugh about it in the morning. That was what he would do, and what he wanted to do would go right back to its comfortable little dark corner of denial and stay there.

Vespasian, Titus, Domitian...

Desmond murmured something in Italian in his ear. Shaun didn't know what it meant. He didn't think about it much, because whatever it was it sounded extremely private, and it ended with,

"...Leonardo."

The decision of what to do was taken out of Shaun's hands. His body jumped, crashed into the wall, turned over, grabbed Desmond, and practically shouted "What?!" all on its own.

Desmond's eyes were open, thank god for small favors. They were also bewildered. "Leo-?"

"No!" Shaun hissed as quietly as he could, glancing through the shadows at the door. The absolute last thing he needed was for the girls to wake up. He'd never hear the end of it. "You are not Ezio Auditore, I am not Leonardo da Vinci, this is _not_ the ideal way to find out that your ancestor was shagging the man who painted the Last Supper, and you rubbing yourself all over me while you have randy past life fantasies is _bloody cruel_."

Desmond stared at him. Though his face was a collection of dark and light areas without color, his expression was perfectly clear. It was possible that was all babble to him. While it looked like the dull, baffled stare Shaun knew so well, Desmond could still be caught up in the bleeding effect.

"Des?" Shaun said. He shook him gingerly by the shoulder. "Are you in there?"

"Yeah. I think."

It'd never been such a relief to hear plain English. Shaun could have hugged him, if that wouldn't have been even more awkward for everyone involved. His back felt terribly cold next to the memory of Desmond pressed against it.

"Um," said Desmond, showing his usual world-beating initiative, and why did Shaun wake him up again? It had seemed important a minute ago but now he had his regrets. "Was I...?"

"You were." Shaun swallowed. The dark made Desmond's eyes look very large. His hand was still on his shoulder. "Now, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to leave, I'm going to wank furiously, and we are going to never speak of this again. All right?"

Shaun was halfway to getting up and remembering this very clearly for a few minutes before trying very hard to forget it when he felt Desmond grab his wrist.

"Wait. It's not all right."

He was sitting up with the sheet sliding down his chest. There was an odd, stubborn look on his face.

Shaun, making full use of his intellect and gift for repartee, said, "What?"

"I mean-" He let go to rub his face. Shaun noticed he was not leaving. "Shit, I should've known this was gonna happen. Sleeping next to a cute guy. I wanted to find some way to be suave and romantic about this, but you know there's not a lot of privacy around here and... Jesus, just blurting out 'You're hot and I'm into guys and I like you' would've been smoother than having a dream about the guy who did the Pieta and humping you in my sleep. So...yeah. Are you gonna punch me now? Cause just looking at me like that and not breathing is freaking me out."

Shaun wasn't entirely sure at what point kissing him became inevitable, but he made it fairly obvious. Desmond did not appear to have a problem with that.

That used up all the restraint Shaun had left. He grabbed Desmond's shoulders and kissed him exactly the way he wanted to every time he saw him nibble thoughtfully at that god damned scar. It felt like a seam against his lips, exactly the way he could, just for now, stop denying he'd imagined. It was fumbling, messy, and very, very good.

From very close, looking into the wide eyes that held a hint of gold even in the dark, Shaun said, "Michelangelo did the Pieta."

Desmond breathed, "I so don't care."

It was either argue or kiss him again. There'd be time for arguing in the morning.

"Do you have any idea," Shaun hissed, "what kind of sounds you were making? I was about to go bloody mad!"

Desmond gave him a lust-drunk grin and rolled on top of him. "If I'd known it just took falling asleep to get you to make a move, I'd've done it a lot sooner."

Shaun learned that biting his shoulder got a gasp the same as he'd heard shortly before. In the footsteps of Leonardo bloody Da Vinci.

That reminded him- "If you call my by the name of any historical figure," he said, while pressing up against Desmond's hips to make sure he was paying attention, "I am throwing you out the window."

"Don't gotta worry about that," Desmond said, with a hint of breath that Shaun found gratifying. He was in a patch of light that made his face bright and pale. He cupped Shaun's rear with both hands. "Nobody in history had this great an ass."

"Well, there _was_ \- mmph."

You wouldn't expect Desmond to be the type to be demanding. Shaun found he didn't mind. Desmond did him the favor of getting rid of his boxers before he realized just how much they were irritating him. The sight of Desmond sitting up and pushing down his own pants with his thumbs and a wriggle of his hips was one Shaun vowed to keep very close on cold nights.

"My god," he said as he ran the backs of his fingers down Desmond's stomach, "I thought this sort of thing was only in jeans adverts."

"I'll take that as an apology for all that crap about me getting fat."

"Imagine how you must have looked _before_ you got fat," said Shaun, just to make Desmond kiss him quiet. He really did make the best plans.

Especially when Desmond expressed his irritation by grinding him into the mattress, and his bare cock against Shaun's made heat splash through his entire body. Keeping still was impossible. He grabbed Desmond's arse to hold on by and set out with single-minded determination to get more.

"Shit," Desmond hissed in his ear. His body and his cock were hard and hot against Shaun's. It was entirely different from when he was pressed against Shaun in his sleep - this was for _him_.

That was how he learned that Desmond wasn't always passive and accepting.

He bucked against Shaun, hungry and ferocious, his cock slick and velvety against his. His hands were firm on his shoulders to give him the leverage to thrust his whole body in a way that made sparks burst in Shaun's vision. He gave him a rough, urgent kiss and caught their cocks together in his hand. Shaun felt Desmond's teeth bite into his shoulder and a whimper vibrate against his skin as Desmond's body went rigid and wet heat splashed over him. It might have been the surge of pride and self-satisfaction alone that made Shaun do the same. For one ecstatic moment, his body flared white-hot and beat his brain into submission.

Shaun felt the warmth of Desmond's breath on his neck, touching in counterpoint to his pulse. There was a silence to share the rare moment of being fully human and less alone.

"Get off me, fatarse," said Shaun.

"Yeah," Desmond agreed dreamily and nuzzled beneath his chin with a slight scrape of stubble. "That _was_ incredible."

"Not what I said."

Desmond looked up at him, eyes warm. His lips, marked with the light line of his scar, curved with an unreasonable and undeniable trust. "It's what you meant."

As he drifted off, Shaun thought that he could learn to live with Desmond being right.


End file.
